This invention relates to a stringed musical instrument and more particularly to a stringed musical instrument such as an acoustic guitar, a mandolin, a ukulele and a violin having an improved configuration of a body or sound box to facilitate playing thereof.
A conventional stringed musical instrument such as an acoustic guitar which has a body including an upper sounding board, a lower sounding board and a side wall, a neck projecting from the body, and strings tensioned between the neck and the body.
To play the guitar of this arrangement, the strings tensioned between the neck and the body are forcibly vibrated and the vibrations are transmitted to the body. The body is then resonated and the sound is amplified within the body to generate sounds of proper volume.
When a performer plays the guitar of the above arrangement, it is frequently necessary for the performer to use his or her fingers to press or stop the strings at particular regions positioned on the body. However, the side wall of the body in proximity to a base portion of the neck acts as an obstruction to prevent the player from smoothly pressing or stopping such strings. That is, it is necessary to excessively distort or twist his or her wrist and fingers to press or stop the strings, which may be painful.
To solve the above drawback, a curvature 21 which is generally defined in a conventional electric guitar, as illustrated in FIG. 5, where the curvature 21 is defined in a body 23 adjacent to the neck 22, having strings 29 may be employed in the acoustic guitar of this type. However, it is likely to lower a sound effect, since a resonant hollow, which is defined by the body of the acoustic guitar, is undesirably influenced by the changing of the configuration of the body.